Gary, Indiana, just wrapped up week two with no power, and the left-wing narrative on the extended blackout is (unsurprisingly), “It’s racism!” As someone who lived in Gary for a decade, I can tell you it is anything but that.
Gary made me a conservative. In 1999, I married a man from Gary and moved to his home on the west side. That marked the beginning of a 10-year journey in one of the most dangerous cities in America. I was a default Democrat at the time, like most black Americans. Still, as a Christian woman, I dove into community service right away, helping launch and direct an afterschool program.
There I saw how all the laws and policies I had supported my entire adult life worked up close. I quickly discovered they don’t. I was treated to an endless stream of haughty, entitled bureaucrats who openly despised anyone trying to improve the city on their own. In a city that is almost all black and run exclusively by black people, you’d think I would have found many allies and people excited for progress. It was the exact opposite. Gary was a mess then, and it’s still a mess.
The cries of racism have been the loudest these past few days. Memphis is also experiencing a mass power outage, and Malcolm X impersonator Justin Pearson is using Gary’s current crisis to make a connection to the Memphis blackout:
The post is quite the self-own. Pearson skates near the edges of the truth here, but per usual glides right by the obvious conclusion: Majority-black cities are governed terribly.
Gary is not experiencing storm racism. Gary is experiencing complete incompetence, and the storm laid it bare. There are a few reasons Gary remains in a position of suffering.
First, people literally shot at the power company. NIPSCO (Northwest Indiana’s energy provider) has reported that multiple bullets struck their vehicle as employees tried to navigate the streets of the city and make repairs.
Second, people are abandoning their homes in search of air conditioning, gas, and electricity, leaving property vulnerable to thieves and home invaders. My senior citizen uncle refuses to leave his home for fear there will be nothing to come back to. He and his wife feel they must choose between suffering and theft.
Third, police presence is limited after years of mismanagement, Black Lives Matter’s “defund the police” nonsense, and escalating violence that drives away recruits. Emergency response in that city is a toss-up. I once called to report a break-in at my neighbor’s house and was told to call back if anyone was hurt. The police department never sent a patrol, and my neighbor returned to a ransacked home. Now, imagine the response when literally everyone in the city is in a state of emergency.
Fourth, Gary’s infrastructure is apocalyptic. In fact, films often choose Gary to shoot dystopian scenes. The city is riddled with abandoned buildings, overgrown lots, potholes, and damaged sidewalks. Power crews must first clear all the overgrown trees and branches that are tangled in the lines before they can rebuild. Emergency crews that manage to survive the shooting still face the challenge of navigating a city in complete disrepair.
Fifth, the city’s leadership has been hopelessly lazy and corrupt for as long as I can remember, and people older than I say the same. The new mayor has garnered some good reviews from skeptical residents, but he has clearly not been leading the city, only stemming the bleeding. Good leaders prepare for the future while governing the present. In Gary, no leaders prepare for future trouble because the status quo is simply to blame any trouble on Republican presidents and white people.
All this is the true crux of this issue — who governs Gary and how.
The vast majority of Gary’s population is black. The entire government is black. The city should be a black paradise if we are to believe Democrats. Instead, it is a nightmare. If only black politicians can help black people, what are black people supposed to do when those politicians completely abdicate their duties?
The constant cry of racism when it comes to our urban chaos is exhausting. There is no reason for Gary to be in its current condition. It has everything it needs to be a beautiful, prosperous city. It sits on a prime stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline. It has stunning historical architecture and is squarely in the middle of one of America’s heaviest transportation corridors. It is a mere 30 miles from Chicago, giving it connections to jobs and culture. Ostensibly, Gary could operate as a cheaper “suburb” of Chicago if it had the political mettle.
There is no one to blame for Gary’s tragic decline or current desperation besides the very people who keep telling us white people are the problem.
Take it from someone who knows. Gary isn’t in the dark because of racist white people. Gary is in the dark because of incompetent, selfish, self-interested black people who trade on the language of racism to maintain their power without accountability. They may not be able to control the power companies, but they can control their response to emergencies. Gary officials have mastered nothing but the language of racism and the art of dispensing suffering. It is a stunning betrayal.
It is not racism preventing Gary from thriving. It is apathy, political thievery, and race obsession.
